100 Word Challenge
by joudama
Summary: These are hundred word drabbles written for an FF7 drabble comm on insanejournal. As I write drabbles for it, I'll add them here.
1. Shed Your Skin

Title: Shed Your Skin

Challenge: Crossovers

Characters: Snake, Otacon, Cloud

--

Snake's PHS rang. He glanced at the name, then before Tifa could say too much, said "I have to take this," and made his way out of the Nibelheim inn. He didn't trust Cloud, not yet.

"Snake?" Otacon said softly, and there was something strange in his voice.

"Yeah?"

"I...found out about that ex-SOLDIER."

"And you're only finding stuff _now_?"

"Hey, I had to hack deep into ShinRa to get anything! Technically, 'Cloud Strife' doesn't exist!"

"So he's not a SOLIDER?!"

He heard Otacon swallowing, and that wasn't good. "No. He's...one of their _clone_ experiments. Like you."


	2. Pretty Things

Title: Pretty Things

Challenge: Lust

Characters: Angeal, Sephiroth, Genesis

--

Angeal had a weakness for pretty things.

He'd always had a weakness for pretty things, even from when he was little--he'd taken one look at Genesis when they were six and hadn't been able to stop looking at him.

He had a weakness for pretty things, and his eyes kept tracing over the lines of Sephiroth's body, over the twist of his hand, the faint curl of his lips, and the way the black leather contrasted so against that white, white skin of his chest.

He'd always had a weakness for pretty things, and Genesis, watching, narrowed his eyes.


	3. I Have Kissed Thy Mouth, Iokanaan

Title: I Have Kissed Thy Mouth, Iokanaan

Challenge: Lust

Characters: Sephiroth, Angeal

Author's Notes: The title comes from Salome's monologue by Oscar Wilde: _Ah! I have kissed thy mouth, Iokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood? Nay; but perchance it was the taste of love. They say that love hath a bitter taste. But what matter? what matter? I have kissed thy mouth._

Only in dreams is he allowed this.

Angeal is his friend, the first one he has ever had, and so he does not allow these thoughts in the waking hours.

But in his dreams, Sephiroth envisions terrible things, driving his sword through Angeal's belly and moving closer, closer, as Angeal chokes on the blood that flows from his lips.

Only in his dreams can he watch Angeal writhing in pain, impaled, flush against Masamune's hilt...and only in dreams can he force his lips against Angeal's, can he taste the blood and the heat, and he awakens, sickened and aroused.


	4. Just Desserts

Title: Just Desserts

Challenge: Gluttony

Characters: Rude, Reno

Author's Notes: In my head, Rude has a sweet tooth. XD;;

"That's, like, you're third dessert!" Reno said, staring at Rude with his jaw hanging open.

"It's good dessert here," Rude said, ignoring Reno and concentrating on the cherry pie. It had been a while since he'd had good pie.

"Keep it up, you're gonna be as huge as the pres," Reno said shaking his head.

"I'm sure you'll think of some way for me to work it off," Rude said absently, and took another bite. He licked some pie filling at the corner of his mouth, and Reno swallowed, then _grinned_.

"...yeah, uh...so...want some more pie?"

--


	5. The Menagerie

Title: The Menagerie

Challenge: The zoo

Characters: Sephiroth, Angeal, Genesis

Word Count: 100

Rating: PG

./

"The Zoo."

That was what they called it, down there. Sephiroth had seen more than enough of it. He'd been there more than enough times, down there in the labs, doing so-called "training" with the _things_ Hojo had created.

./

"What is wrong with him?" Genesis said, making a face.

"I asked him to go to the zoo that just opened," Angeal said in confusion. "You know how he always seems so...uptight? I figured seeing the animals might be good for him. But he flipped."

"That guy is fucked up," Genesis said, shaking his head, and Angeal just frowned


	6. What Hurts the Most

Title: What Hurts the Most

Challenge: Elena

Word Count: 100

Rating: PG

./

It _hurts_.

She's not unused to pain. She's not. She's a Turk, after all, and being able to take some pain is just as much a part of the job as being able to dish it out.

She's taken more than her share, but she's also given more than her share.

It's normally nothing; something a Potion or a Cure later will take care of.

But what they've done to her, that's not what hurts. Not what she knows will scar her with nightmares.

No.

What hurts isn't what they've done to _her_.

It's seeing what they've done to _him_.


	7. How He Was

Title: How He Was

Characters/Pairings: Genesis, Angeal

Prompt: first word, last word

Rating: R

Word Count: 100

./

Gentle.

That's how he was, even though Angeal suspected no one knew it but him.

Genesis was gentle. With a few things, at least, but it was those things that really showed who Gen was inside. It was the was his fingers caressed the spines of his books, as if they had been more precious than all the money his family had. It was the way his fingers had moved over the piano when he was playing something soft and delicate and full of emotion, coaxing the emotion out.

"You're a monster now," Genesis said, and his voice was gentle


	8. Itsuka

**Prompt: **First Word, Last Word

**A/N:** The title comes from a Crystal Kay song, "Memory Box," because of the line "_Itsuka_ I will be alright" ("One day, I'll be alright.")

./

"Alright," Aerith said, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. She had put this off for too long. She had been _silly_ about this for too long. It was time to grow up.

Holding on to hope was a wonderful thing, but there was a point where it hurt more than it helped. She knew she had to let go. So she wrote her last letter.

She paused at the end, and then wrote "Good-bye," The pen shook, a little, in her hands.

Zack was gone. He was never coming back. One day, she - _this_ - would be alright


	9. E lucevan le stelle

**Prompt: **First Word, Last Word

**A/N:** The title comes from an aria, "E lucevan le stelle," and means "And the stars shone," but the idea for the word "stars" actually comes from Dante, because the last word of each book of the Divine Comedy was "stelle," "stars."

./

Stars shone brilliantly in the sky, and Sephiroth, for a moment, felt his breath taken away.

He had never _seen_ the starts before - not for real, in the sky. He'd studied them, of course, memorized the names, constellations, but _this_-

The sky was so very vast, and he was so very small. But he was _free._

He looked at the night sky often, in Wutai.

Until _his_ first _real_ battle. When it was done, he looked up, and did not feel _small_. There was no vast sky; only the flames he _had_ caused, licking up to and blocking the stars.


	10. Tilting at Windmills

**Prompt: **First Word, Last Word

**A/N:** I figure Gen and Angeal are about eight for this one. XD

./

"Destiny calls!" Genesis said with a whoop, waving his stick - or "Amakuni," a fanciful name from one of his storybooks - around. "Willst thou come with me, or willst thou be a coward?"

Angeal grinned, then looked around quickly for a stick of his own. It took a while, and Genesis kept his pose the whole time, although his toe was tapping with impatience and he was squirming a bit.

Finally found one, and quickly stripped off the extra bits. Genesis grinned. "You have your Osafune, and now, to war! To glory!"

"To honor!" Angeal yelled, chasing after Genesis, "And destiny!"


	11. Through the Delirium

**Prompt: **First Word, Last Word

./

Drops were falling from the sky.

She is only barely conscious of them. There's so much pain, it's like it's all that is in the world.

Drops of something. Rain, tears, blood, Tifa doesn't know.

Everything hurts so much. Her stomach, her heart, all of it hurts, and she feels blackness at the edges of her sight and her consciousness, pulling her back from the delirium of pain into back into a blessed unconsciousness.

Her eyes crack open briefly, and sees Zangan, bracer readied. "Be strong, girl," he whispers, and before she passes out, from his eyes, a tear drops.


	12. Just How Many

**Title:** Just How Many

**Author:** joudama

**Word Count:** 100

**Rating: **R

**Team: **the Turks

**Prompt: **First Word, Last Word

**A/N: **...yeah, OK, so I like this prompt. :p

"You know how many?" Reno said, and the tone was utterly light and conversational.

Rude knew that voice; knew how much of a cover it was at times. He knew Reno better than anyone - and perhaps the same could be said for Reno knowing him - and he _knew_ that voice.

"How many what?" the scientist - the scientist who had been attempting to smuggle out sensitive documents, on certain ShinRa experiments, to the media. The decidedly worse for wear scientist.

Reno grinned. "How many hits it takes to break every bone in your body? No? So how 'bout I show you?


	13. And the Living is Easy

**Prompt: **First Word, Last Word

**A/N: **...I should be sleeping now. :p

./

Summer in Midgar _sucked_.

Angeal had no problem letting everyone he knew know it, either. Most people were used to Gen whinging about every little thing, but there were times when Angeal had him beat. Namely, the Midgar summer.

It was hot. It was humid. He spent every day contemplating shaving his head at least once, and every second _not_ on duty or in public in his boxers. In front of a fan. Brain melting.

So he didn't get Gen decked out in his leathers, blissfully aware of the heat and smiling faintly, engrossed in his "light reading for summer.


	14. A Thin Red Gulf Between Duty and Honor

**Title:** A Thin Red Gulf Between Duty and Honor

**Author:** joudama

**Rating:** PG

**Prompt:** First Word, Last Word

**Character:** Angeal

**A/N:** During the war in Wutai. This uses my personal jou-canon of Angeal having PTSD from the war, which is seriously the only reason I've ever been able to come up with to reasonably explain the way he snapped in Crisis Core, and why he so easily believes himself to be a monster.

Honor was a hard thing to hold onto in war.

Angeal tried. He tried _so _very hard. It was the only thing he thought he had days when the air was thick with the smell of blood, and nights when his dreams were full of burning screams.

He loved fighting the enemy; fighting men with guns and swords and materia.

But when duty said his _enemy_ was villages of women and children with fear of _him_ in their eyes, with blood on his face and ash in his hair, _duty_ made it too easy to lose that hold on _honor_


	15. Literary Pursuits

**Prompt: **Fate worse than death

**A/N: **This takes place during the war in Wutai, and also, mwa.

./

It has been three hours and forty-three minutes.

There are still roughly four hours and seventeen to go before they arrive in Gwongnaam.

For the last three hours of that three hours and now forty-four minutes, Genesis has been reading. This would be fine, were the man reading _silently_. Or at the very least, not reading the same gods bedamned passages over and over.

It has now been three hours and forty-five minutes. There are four hours and fifteen long minutes to go, and Sephiroth is very, _very_ certain he will feel _every last one_ of them


	16. Triage

**Prompt:** Fate worse than death  
**Character:** Angeal  
**A/N: **This takes place pre-CC, during the war in Wutai. Which was not, in my mind, kind to Angeal. :(

./

If he casts Curaga _now_; casts until he's _dry_, she'll live.

The girl - no more than seven - is alive. Angeal has no idea how it's possible; she's covered in burns from the flames, so much her flesh is charred black and cracked.

If he casts Curaga now, she'll survive for the medics to come. They'll care for her. Then...she'll be a disfigured war orphan, _neither_ of which Wutai are kind to.

If he casts Curaga now, she'll live. And so Angeal does not.

But he sees her face every night after, in his dreams of war and ash.


	17. Something New

**Prompt: **Fate worse than death

./

"Oh, good. You're awake," a man in glasses says, and smiles.

Cloud blinks, slowly, but can't manage more than that, and not only because he's strapped down to a table.

The man picks up a needle and taps to clear air from it.

"You somehow managed to terminate my greatest experiment, something I wouldn't have thought possible of anyone, let alone a trooper. Was it just S's failing, or something about you?

"I'd hate for all my hard work to be for nothing," the man says and injects the needle into Cloud's arm, and Cloud learns that he can scream


	18. How to Be a Good Boy

**Prompt: **Fate worse than death

**A/N: **Hi, I hate my brain. ;_; Same horrid jou-canon as Deadly Sweet Mother, and Gen is seven or eight.

./

His mother's hand clamps down tight around Genesis' throat, and he can't _breathe_.

But he _knows_. He knows not to cry out. He knows, but he can't help it, can't help to struggle, and her other hand clamps down just as tight, just as hard, where it _hurts_, between his legs, and he lets out a whimper.

She squeezes tightly again, and he thinks he'll _die_, then she lets go of his throat and he gasps for air, choking but trying to stay quiet.

"Good," she says, her fingers soft against his cheek, and he leans into it, tears quiet.


	19. Shunt

**Prompt:** A fate worse than death.

**A/N: **This is during the war in Wutai. It was really, really hard to keep this to 100 words. It really wanted to be longer, because there's a lot more going on. Who knows, maybe one day I'll sit down and really flesh this out like it wants.

./

"Angeal's being shipped back to Midgar," Genesis said tersely.

Sephiroth rubbed his temple, glad Genesis couldn't see it.

"He's being shunted sideways. They can't demote him. So they're sending him to baby-sit baby SOLDIERs," Genesis said disgustedly. "Why?"

"Someone has to train the new recruits. He'll be good at it."

"There's no glory in that! And I need him here!"

"I know," Sephiroth said softly.

"...you did this. Why?"

"Have you spoken to him lately?"

"No. Gwongnaam's still hot."

"I have," Sephiroth said. And it's because the war won't kill him, he thought. What it has done is _worse_.


	20. The King's Man

**Prompt: **Characters in a film  
**Film: **The King and the Clown

./

The king beat the drum madly, strands of his long silver hair slipping loose, and Zack tried his best to humor him, playing as madly to keep up.

And then the drum broke, and the king tossed it aside with a smirk, his green eyes wide. Then the king went abruptly still, and his eyes went sharp as he looked around, clearly seeking something - or rather, some_one - _out.

"Cloud. Where is Cloud?" the king said. Cloud hesitantly stood from where he'd hid himself behind the puppetry stage, and Zack didn't like the obsessive possessiveness he saw bloom on Sephiroth's face.


	21. The Gift

**Prompt: **Characters in a film  
**Fim: **Inception

./

"I know because I did it," Angeal said, the words sounded tortured. "Plant an idea, inception, I _did it_. And it was a mistake," he said, digging his hands in his hair.

Zack stared at Angeal, not comprehending. "You did? With who? How?"

A muscle in Angeal's jaw twitched, and he looked so defeated. "With Genesis. It was the only way. But I didn't think...I didn't know, it would resonate so much, back when we finally woke up."

He looked so tortured. "Why do you think he was so obsessed with the goddess?" he whispered, and suddenly, Zack _understood._


	22. The Safe Room

**Prompt: **Characters in a film  
**Film: **Ringu/The Ring

./

Tifa panted, her breaths coming desperate and quick. She'd slammed the door shut, the windows were closed, there was no way in here.

Safe. She was safe. She had to be safe here.

She hadn't believed it, hadn't thought for a second that stupid urban legend about the video could _possibly_ be true...but then they'd all died, just now, everyone in front of her. She was all that was left, her seven days was up...

No. She was safe here. She _was_.

The TV blared to life, flicking and showing a silver-haired man.

Then Sephiroth crawled through the TV.


	23. Under the Covers

**Prompt: **Characters in a film  
**Film:** Juon/The Grudge

./

Cloud ran into the elevator and all but slammed his fist into the floor number and the shut button, then collapsed against the wall, shutting his eyes tightly and trying to convince himself _none_ of what he had seen had been real.

And because his eyes were closed, he didn't see Denzel, pale and dead-eyed, staring at him on every floor.

Cloud ran to his apartment, to his room, feeling like everything had been a bad dream. Home was _home_; safe. No ghosts, no-

He crawled into bed, relieved, then felt-_no_-

He lifted the sheet and Jenova _smiled._


	24. The Bed of Chrysanthemums and Blood

**Prompt**: Characters in a film  
**Film:** The Curse of the Golden Flower  
**A/N:** What can I say, I like Asian period dramas. XD;;;

./

Sephiroth fought.

It was a battle he was doomed to lose; he had known it was doomed from the instant he had taken up his mother's emblem of the golden chrysanthemum. He had made his choice, and his choice was his mother, not the emperor.

He fought in her doomed attempt to undermine Hojo; set Sephiroth on the throne and depose both Hojo and Crown Prince Genesis (he would not think of the rumors; whispers of incest between Jenova and her eldest son, though he was another woman's child). Blood and steel flashed in the night sky, and Sephiroth fought.


	25. In a Poor, Provincial Town

Prompt: Characters in a film

./

Genesis walked out of the bookstore, avidly reading his book, and the people of Banora shook their heads.

"Look there he goes, that boy is so peculiar,  
I wonder if he's feeling well?" a group of men sang.

"With a dreamy, far-off look,  
And his nose stuck in a book,  
What a puzzle to the rest of us is Gen!" they all finished.

Genesis ignored them, settling down, then pointed excitedly.

"Oh, isn't this amazing? It's my favorite part because you'll see  
Here's the promise of Her Gift  
But they won't discover what is until part three!" he sang.


	26. Good Girl

Prompt: New Beginnings

./

Tifa had always been a good girl. She hadn't quite managed "ladylike," but she'd always done what she'd been told, been polite and stayed out of trouble.

"She's a handful," her father said once, "but she's a good girl."

She'd tried so hard to please him as much as she could, even if she just couldn't on some things, like training and going off on her own in the mountains. Wild, but a good girl.

She stared out the window of the hospital room, stomach bandaged and throbbing, saw the ShinRa building, and decided it was time to be _bad._


End file.
